Big Brother Billionaire (Part Three) (3 page)

It wasn’t until Ron was safely out of the apartment the next day that I dove into the trash, retrieving all of the pieces of letter I could find. Some of them were sopping and stained from dumped coffee grounds, but I spread them across the floor, piecing the tears back together, going for the roll of tape I kept in the junk drawer to make the words legible again. I had to know what Marcus had written to me—now more than ever. His correspondence came often and regularly. I was frankly surprised that Ron hadn’t discovered Marcus’ letters before last night.

But most of the time, I tended to ignore them. I might read one, just to see how he was doing, but the parts where he talked about still being in love with me—those were the parts that I didn’t like to read. I would usually skip over those parts. They were torturous to read, especially when I often tried to convince him of the opposite. No, he didn’t love me. No, I wasn’t the only one for him; he was holding out hope for something that just wasn’t possible anymore, not since we’d been in the same house together, part of the same family. He could be happy with someone else, if he just gave someone else a chance, if he forgot that he was saving himself for me.

Listening carefully for the telltale roar of Ron’s motorcycle returning, I pored over the reconstructed letter, made very nearly intact with tape and desperation.

My Parker,
it began. It always began like that. It used to anger me because it felt possessive, but now all I could discern was affection.

I won’t write to you anymore, if that’s what you really want,
it continued.
I’ll respect your wishes. I wish I could change the way I felt about you, but I can’t. I’ll be honest with you. I have been with other women.

I had to stop reading at that. It didn’t matter that I had been with Ron, or that I’d been the one who had encouraged Marcus, at one point, to give other women a chance. It still stung to realize that the man I had been in love with this whole time—whether I consciously realized it or not—had turned to other women for comfort when I had denied him.

I couldn’t blame him, of course, or be angry about it. That would be selfish. But I couldn’t help feeling a twinge of hopelessness. If he could be with other women when he professed to love me so much, then there was a chance that he could, one day, move on completely from me. I would be forgotten, a scared woman locked in a relationship she couldn’t find a way out of, alone in Miami for the rest of my life.

The other women enabled me to reach some sort of physical release, if you must know, but there won’t be a spiritual release until you and I are together,
the letter continued.
I hope you understand. I have to have something to fill my days with, some kind of sweetness to distract me from the parts of me that never stop aching for you.

These were the kinds of paragraphs I would glaze over in the past. He made me uncomfortable with how flowery his language was when he was describing his feelings for me. Writing was never something I’d mastered in school, and he seemed to have taken to it swimmingly in the military school and academy where he’d been educated. Now, however, I gave these words my rapt attention. I’d tried to turn him away, but here he was telling me he was still interested.

The next paragraph, however, shattered that illusion.

This is my last letter to you,
he’d written, the handwriting growing halting, smudged, as if he’d stopped writing and started up again multiple times.
I’ve pushed you too hard, and I can see that. I’m sorry that you could never get past what society expects out of a wonderful and loving relationship. I’m sorry that you couldn’t look past what our parents thought was right, to embrace what we knew was right. I wish I could be like you, Parker. I wish that I could try to deny the thing I want the most, but I’m just not strong enough. I’ll try to be strong for you now, though. I’ll try to leave you alone. I’ll try to move forward in life even if I don’t have a destination in mind anymore. The destination I had in mind was always with you, you know. It was always with you.

I’ll try to stop loving you, Parker. I just don’t know if it’s going to be possible.

Tears obscured my vision and fell on the page already mussed by the garbage can, from tearing and tape, smearing the words until they were incomprehensible. Just when I’d been ready to accept the fact that Marcus was the man I was meant to be with, just when I was willing to try to forget that there were so many rules that stood in our way…Marcus was ready to try and forget me.

It was all my fault. I deserved this. I’d been pushing him away for so long that he’d finally gone away for good. I didn’t deserve to be happy. I’d ignored the love that was right in front of me—even if it was across the country—for all this time. Of course I didn’t deserve to have it the second I wanted it. I deserved all of the horrible things that had happened up until this point.

“I thought so.”

I gasped and pushed myself away from the letter, its pages still spread across the floor, panicking like some sort of prey animal as I heard Ron’s voice.

He was standing in the open door. I’d been crying too hard, bemoaning my fate, to hear him enter the apartment. It was strange; I hadn’t heard his motorcycle approach either. Was I that deeply mired in despair?

“I parked the motorcycle three blocks away,” he said, seeming to read my mind. “I had a weird feeling about that letter from last night, and your explanation seemed too tidy.”

“This…this isn’t what it looks like,” I said desperately, drying my eyes and somehow gaining my feet. “I just wanted to know what the letter said.”

“I told you what it said.” Ron’s voice was cool, his posture deceptively relaxed. I knew that he was neither of those things.

“It’s just that…he’s basically my brother, Ron,” I said, wringing my hands, looking for an escape. I could try to shut myself in the bathroom, but then it would only be a matter of time—and probably a worse punishment—that he broke the thin wood down. “I’m always concerned about him. He’s family. I try to see how he’s doing, and now I feel pretty good, you know?”

“Oh, yeah?” Ron asked, polite. “Pretty good? How so?”

“Well, you read the letter,” I said, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. “He said that he was going to stop writing. I’m glad I know that, because I can finally get on with my life, too, without being afraid that someone was going to find out about his attraction to me.”

“If you’re feeling pretty good, baby, then why are you crying?”

I rubbed my face as well as I could. “I don’t know,” I said, forcing myself to laugh. “I think it’s kind of a relief, you know? A relief that it’s all over. All these years, and I haven’t really cried about it. I never wanted to be upset. I just wanted to deal with the problem.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to read the letter?” he asked, taking one step forward. I struggled not to take a step back, struggled to stand my ground. I could still convince him there was nothing here. I could put up a good front and show him his suspicions were untrue. It didn’t matter that it was the deepest truth I knew. That was over now. I needed to get through this situation, right now, or there might not be a chance to tell Marcus how I felt.

“I didn’t want you to think it was weird,” I said, shrugging and trying to look sheepish. “I knew how disgusted you were by everything, and I just wanted to know how my brother was doing. The letters are the only way I can keep track of him. He’s my…my only sibling, and we were very close.”

“A little too close, I think,” Ron said. “This doesn’t look good for you, Parker. You picking through the garbage the second I leave home. Sneaking around. Involved in an incestuous love affair. Do I look like a fool to you?”

“There’s no affair!” I exclaimed, backing helplessly away as Ron strode forward. I couldn’t plant my feet, couldn’t keep myself strong now. It was over, trying to convince Ron that I wasn’t at fault. Now I just had to try and do damage control. “I just wanted to read the letter! I’m sorry!”

“Not as sorry as you’re going to be,” he said, cocking his fist back before hitting me.

Where does the heart hide when there’s nothing to live for?

Where does your hope go in a situation you can’t escape?

How do you still sleep beside a man who leaves marks on your body in anger?

I knew.

I knew the answers to all of those questions.

The heart shrivels and puckers, folds and doubles that fold, shrinks until there’s nothing left to poke at. It can never be completely safe, but it can be close.

The hope deserts. It flees, screaming as the door slams shut. Hope is a dangerous thing, and one the heart can’t entertain anymore. Hope got us hurt the last time. The heart won’t make the mistake of putting its trust in hope again.

Sleep is a reprieve. It’s the only thing left that isn’t his. Yes, awake, his arm is heavy at the waist, an implicit threat, a possessive gesture even as his chest rises and falls, but sleep is still mine. It’s a place I’m eager to get to, a place I’m happy to stay, and a place I’m loathe to leave. In sleep, you don’t see the marks on your body. In sleep, you don’t feel anything. I simply go away for a while, and come back. And each time I come back, I wish I didn’t have to. I wish I could stay there longer and longer. The nothingness of sleep was better—so much better—than being awake.

Ron started going to the club with me again, to keep me out of trouble, he told me. If there was an errand to do out of the apartment, we both went. I didn’t have a spare moment away from him. His icy blue eyes followed my every movement around the apartment, around the club, on the stage, on the streets, waiting for me to misstep, ready to mete out punishment for my crime.

The club was a refuge. I could hide in the dressing room for a time, but not too long, or he’d get suspicious. I could hide away in the private dance area, too, if I was selling dances. It made me work harder to do that, to earn the right to get out of Ron’s line of sight and earn some money.

Often, though, he would engage the services of one of my coworkers just so he could keep an eye on me in the private dance room. Once, it was Mary. Another time, Sally. I couldn’t look at them, kept all of my focus on the customer I was dancing for, aware of the twin blue orbs staring daggers at me.

Every dollar I earned, Ron kept. He trusted me with nothing, afraid that I’d amass the cash I needed to leave him. I didn’t have anywhere to go. That was the problem. He didn’t know that, of course, but he kept a tight hold on my earnings all the same.

Out of all my costumes I’d purchased for the club, I favored only one, at this point. It was a long-sleeved, zip-front jumpsuit. I’d worn it several times before I knew Ron, often unzipping the front of it down below my bellybutton for a more salacious performance. Now, however, I couldn’t show that much skin anymore. I already had to cake on makeup on my face so often that it was hard to get the paychecks I usually enjoyed.

My mentors noticed the changes in me. It was impossible not to.

“You can always just leave, you know,” Babs said to me, putting her hand gently on my shoulder, as I slapped on concealer around a black eye I’d been dealt for a reason I couldn’t recall.

“It wouldn’t be worth it,” I said, not looking at her as I struggled to cover the bruise but still match the pigment of my skin with the makeup. “He’s not like this all the time.”

“We could call the cops on him,” Mary suggested another time, as I dabbed a paper towel dampened with cool water on my neck, trying to lower my body temperature in the bodysuit.

“And what would I do?” I asked, wetting the paper towel again. Maybe I could convince Jake to lower the air conditioner in this place a little. He used to keep it so cold—or maybe I used to wear much more revealing costumes. “I’m not worth anything anymore. I’m barely making enough to survive right now.”

“It will get better once the situation is over,” Sally said from outside a stall door, as I crouched inside, just wanting a break from everything, from everyone looking at my latest bruise or cut or abrasion. I could stay in the stall for five whole minutes without being bothered, usually, and then people started asking for me, wondering how I was doing, offering all of this unsolicited advice.

However, Sally was wrong. There would be nothing better after this. I didn’t have anything to live for anymore, my heart in shambles, my hope nonexistent, and sleep the only refuge from this reality. I was drinking so much now—too much—in an effort to simply send me to sleep.

The misery of my situation, my shattered heart, and my nonexistent hope couldn’t have prepared me for walking down the stage one night, my eyes trained on the pole in order not to make contact with Ron, who occupied the same table he’d sat at when he first started coming to the club, and seeing someone I never thought I’d see again.

But there Marcus was, sitting at the very end of the stage, staring at me agape, as if he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. I was sure my expression of disbelief matched his for a split second before I grabbed the pole and swung around, trying to give myself a split second to regain my composure, trying to convince myself that it had just been a figment of my imagination.

What could he be doing here? It didn’t make sense. It had to be my mind playing tricks on me. There wasn’t another explanation.

But I rounded the pole and looked again, and Marcus hadn’t gone anywhere. In fact, he was standing up, leaning forward, getting as close to the stage as possible.